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Lost Film of 24 Year Old Hitchcock Found in New Zealand
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A lost 1920s Alfred Hitchcock film that provides clues into the legendary director's early working style has been discovered in New Zealand, archivists said on Wednesday. Recently uncovered film "The White Shadow" features a 24 year-old Hitchcock's work as a writer, assistant director, art director and editor. The film was first released in 1924. It is considered to be the earliest surviving feature film in which Hitchcock received a credit, according to the U.S.-based National Film Preservation Foundation. Only the first three of the movie's six reels survive. That adds to the movie's mystery, which some film buffs see as fitting for Hitchcock, because he was famous for creating mysterious stories full of suspense.
The Lost Footage of Ken Kesey's Magic Ride
Psychologist Timothy Leary and Neal Cassady in Bus
Timothy Leary and Neal Cassady in MAGIC TRIP, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo Β© Allen Ginsberg, CORBIS.
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right: Ken Kesey in MAGIC TRIP. Photo Β© Ted Streshinsky, CORBIS. right: The Bus in MAGIC TRIP. Photo Β© Ted Streshinsky, CORBIS.
In 1964, Ken Kesey, the famed author of βOne Flew Over the Cuckooβs Nest,β set off on a legendary, LSD-fuelled cross-country road trip to the New York Worldβs Fair. He was joined by βThe Merry Band of Pranksters,β a renegade group of counterculture truth-seekers, including Neal Cassady, the American icon immortalized in Kerouacβs βOn the Road,β and the driver and painter of the psychedelic Magic Bus. Kesey and the Pranksters intended to make a documentary about their trip, shooting footage on 16MM, but the film was never finished and the footage has remained virtually unseen. With MAGIC TRIP, Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood were given unprecedented access to this raw footage by the Kesey family. They worked with the Film Foundation, HISTORY and the UCLA Film Archives to restore over 100 hours of film and audiotape, and have shaped an invaluable document of this extraordinary piece of American history. Magic Trip opens this month.
Watch "The Light Was Numbered"
Check out the new short film, "The Light Was Numbered" by photographer Amanda Zackem.
Marilyn Monroe Pornographic Film To Premier in Buenos Aires
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In 1946, Norma Jean, later known as Marilyn Monroe, starred along side an anonymous actor in a 6 minute long nudie flick. In the possession of a Spanish collector, no one knew of the film's existence, until he died, and now his children have decided to auction it off. It is now on sale for a base price of half a million dollars and will premier this August at the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival in Argentina.
Glamour of the Gods
Leo (John Gilbert) kisses Felicitas (Greta Garbo) in Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Glamour of the Gods is a celebration of Hollywood portraiture from the industry's 'Golden Age', the period 1920 to 1960. From Greta Garbo and Clark Gable to Audrey Hepburn, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, it is these portraits that transformed actors and actresses into international style icons. In many cases these are the career-defining images of Hollywood's greatest names and help to illustrate their enduring appeal.Β Featuring over 70 photographs, most of which are exquisite vintage prints displayed for the first time, the exhibition is drawn from the extraordinary archive of the John Kobal Foundation and demonstrate photography's decisive role in creating and marketing the stars central to the Hollywood mystique. Now on view at the National Portrait Gallery in London until October 23. www.npg.org.uk
Fellini, La Grande Parade
A new exhibition at the MusΓ©e de lβElysΓ©e reveals the sources of Felliniβs inspiration. Focussing on Felliniβs work through his obsessions by presenting the images that inspired him, those of which he dreamed and those he brought to life, Fellini, la Grande parade provides a new point of view on the maestroβs work. www.elysee.ch
[EROTICA] Pornography Celebrated at UCLA
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It seems as though even California's leading university is accepting pornography as art as UCLA currently exhibits a nearly month long retrospective of films by the legendary art house pornographer Radley Metzgerβfamous for such films as The Opening of Misty Beethoven and Therese and Isabelle. www.happenings.ucla.com
[FILM] They Shoot Movies, Don't They?
βPatti Astorβ Photo by and courtesy of Maripol from Blank City
Blank City tells the long-overdue tale of a disparate crew of renegade filmmakers who emerged from an economically bankrupt and dangerous moment in New York history. From the late 1970's through the mid 80's, when the city was still a wasteland of cheap rent and cheap drugs, these directors crafted daring works that would go on to profoundly influence the development of independent film as we know it today. Film is out now. www.blankcityfilm.com
[FILM] Pere Portabella - A Survey
Francisco Rabal andΓ Silvia Pinal inΓ Luis BuΓΒ±uel'sΓ VIRIDIANA. Γ Credit: Janus Films. Γ Playing 4/24 - 4/30.
In conjunction to the retrospective of the painter Joan MirΓ³, the Tate Modern in London is showing a survey of films by the Catalan director Pere Portabella. His films, many made alongside his frequent collaborator Luis BuΓ±uel, are distinct, revolutionary testaments to individual freedom and liberty in the ugly face of tyrannyβnamely General Francisco Franco. "Portabella's radical experimentation with the limits and conventions of image, sound and genre is echoed in his eloquent critique of state repression and political indifference. His use of structural materialist devices to loosen the bond between image and referent serves to focus the viewer's attention on their role in the political and cultural processes of the circulation of meaning." On view at the Tate Modern until July 31, 2011. www.tate.org.uk
The New Woman International
Germaine Krull by Eli Lotar
Images of flappers, garΓ§onnes, Modern Girls, neue Frauen, and trampkyβall embodiments of the dashing New Womanβsymbolized an expanded public role for women from the suffragist era through the dawn of 1960s feminism. Chronicling nearly a century of global challenges to gender norms, The New Woman International: Representations in Photography and Film from the 1870s through the 1960s (University of Michigan Press) is the first book to examine modern femininity's ongoing relationship with the nineteenth and twentieth centuries' most influential new media: photography and film. You can find the book here.
[Primary Kolors] Ksubi Returns to Colored Denim
Cult Australian fashion label Ksubi, toast the long awaited return of their colored denim range, with a short film directed by Australian director Daniel Askill. Kolors is a fume-fuelled, slow-motion battle between three color-clad models and a trio of β80s muscle cars. With the Ksubi team securing the very last sets of limited edition colored tires by Kumho available in Australia they then enlisted Askill and his team at Collider to fuse the vivid smoke with the spectral denim range. Models Bambi Northwood-Blythe, Cisco Gorrow and Heidi Harrington-Johnson act as modern-day matadors to the rumbling Ford's that attempts to hunt them down while the girls soar above the cars to an operatic soundtrack. Shot next to Sydneyβs Kingsford Smith International Airport in barren industrial wasteland that car fanatics converge on after dark and with a Phantom camera, Askill captures each and every denim movement and smoke billow at 1500 frames per second. The collection is available today in stores worldwide. www.ksubi.com
Fritz Lang, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
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After director Fritz Lang vaulted to prominence with such masterpieces of German cinema as Metropolis and M, he brought his art to Hollywood films, including Fury, Ministry of Fear, The Woman in the Window and more trenchant tales of innocents caught in a web of seeming guilt. His last U.S. movie is this intriguing film noir about a novelist (Dana Andrews) out to expose the injustices of capital punishment. Working with his fiancΓ©eβs (Joan Fontaine) father, a newspaper publisher (Sidney Blackmer), he frames himself for murder, intending to produce exonerating evidence at the last moment. But the publisher suddenly dies, the evidence is lostβ¦ and thatβs only the first twist in a brilliantly layered plot ideally suited to Langβs talents. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt has been recently restored and is available on DVD.
[Documentary] L'Amour Fou: The Legacy of Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent left a fashion legacy. He also left behind an extraordinary collection of art. In L'amour fou, Saint Laurent's partner in business and life, Pierre BergΓ©, made the choice to auction off the collection after Saint Laurent's death in 2008. It was considered "the auction of the century." BergΓ© talks about their relationship in both respectsβfrom meeting Saint Laurent after his dismissal from Dior to starting up their fashion house and, of course, the art that they amassed. The collection started in the 1950s and included works ranging from Picasso and Matisse to Egyptian sculptures.
The art collection is impressive, but it represents more than just two collectorsβthey're the puzzle pieces that form a picture of a unique, half-century partnership. Carefully crafting a loving and well-deserved tribute, director Pierre Thoretton stunningly blends BergΓ©'s interviews, rare archival footage, and incredible access to their homes to make what amounts to more than a biography. He captures a love storyβa so-called crazy loveβof art, fashion, and the two men who loved both and one another.
L'Amour Fou is currently beingΒ premieredΒ at the Tribeca Film Festival. www.tribecafilm.com
Deconstructing Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up
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Want to see a naked, nubile Jane Birkin in a threesome? Antonioni's film 1966 film Blow Up captured the zeitgeist of 1960s London with a bear trap. Its famous cover, with the lead character, a fashion photographer played by the venerable David Hemmings, lurching over the rail thin, German model Veruschka, is emblematic of an entire decade of cinema. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Blow Up, inspired by a book written by the Argentinian novelist Julio CortΓ‘zar, as well as the real life of iconic fashion photographer David Bailey, tells the the story of a fashion photographer who inadvertently stumbles into a murder.
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The film, which stars David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, and Sarah Miles, is a real-time paced glimpse into an otherwise drab London at the apex of the Swinging Sixties. It was time when photographers were considered rock stars; groupies and all, doing whatever it takes to get their picture taken. Using film stills and actual photographs in the film, a new book has come out this month on Steidl that re-examines Blow Up in a retrospective, socio-cultural context. Antonioni's Blow-Up, as the book is called, by Philippe Garner and David Alan, promises a "fresh and stimulating study of Antonioniβs masterpiece."
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You can find the book on Colette's e-shop. www.colette.fr
Icon of 1940s Fashion: Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman is stunning when when she appears on the silver screen in the 1942 classic Casablanca, and the same in Hitchcock's 1946 masterpieceΒ Notorious. Bergman was not only an icon of the silver screen, but an icon of fashion in a decade when the world was at war. In the 1940s the fashion houses of an occupied France were struggling with limited resources, a fabric shortage, and the rise of competing American fashion houses. In 1940s style was anΒ experimentΒ in sartorial renunciation - an "expression of circumstances" as opposed to frivolity. In 1947 Christian Dior introduced the New Look collection - a βmake do and mendβ approach to fashion that didn't comprise "ideals of beauty, femininity and luxury." Ingrid Bergman was a life long fan of Dior - her fitted suits, Β pencil skirts, subtle accessories, and a slightly androgynous charm helped define the era.
A new book, Forties Fashion:From Siren Suits to the New Look, Jonathan Walford, founder of the Fashion History Museum of Canada,Β "is an essential sourcebook" of 1940s fashion; "a glorious celebration of everything from practical attire for air raids to street and anti-fashion." Β AroundΒ 250 illustrations reveal the wide range of fashions and styles that emerged throughout the Second World War, in Europe, North America, Australasia and Japan. Including period advertisements, images of real clothes, and first-hand accounts from contemporary publications.
[INFLUENCERS] The Psychomagic of Alejandro Jodorowsky
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Film still from El Topo
With gallons of blood, dwarves, and maimed circus performers, weirdness is almost always guaranteed. Your money's worth? Not so much if you're not ready for the holy mountain that is Alejandro Jodorowsky. A gunfighter on a violent quest for enlightenment, a feverish search for a mythical holy mountain, and a man serving as his armless mother's arms, carrying out vengeful murders on her behalf, all summarize, albeit briefly, the trifecta of Chilean filmmaker and artist Alejandro Jodorowsky's surreal and mystical cinematic masterpieces: El Topo, Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre. Or maybe they're a summary of all the alter-egos of the man himself, the cult legend, the auteur of weird.
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Film still from El Topo
Most people have probably never heard his name before - much less seen his films, but Jodoorsky has had a massive influence on the avant garde, as well as impact on mainstream culture, for almost 30 years. And thankfully, these days his name has been rising to the surface a lot more. With a high definition version of El Topo, slated for release on April 26, and various premiers of his films, lectures, and collaborations Jodoworsky seems to be getting his rightly due.
In March, Jodowosky started production on a film version of his autobiography The Dance of Reality. To date he has published over 23 novels in the field of psychomagic - which aims to heal wounds of the soul using the Tarot and various forms of holistic mysticism. He has even spent fifteen years recreating the Tarot of Marseilles - cards that have been de rigueur to the practice of Tarot reading since the 15th century; the cards most are familiar with. In the end it seems as though Alejandro Jodorowsky is satisfied in the role as shaman and he professes that his main goal is mainly "to spread consciousness." But no matter the course of the artist's multiple identities, Jodorowsky will always be an artist and whatever the medium may be he will continue to have a tremendous influence and voice each time culture sheds its fickle skin.
Visit Alejandro Jodorowsky's official site
Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre
For Adarsha....
Directed by Oliver Maxwell Kupper Starring Adarsha Benjamin
Harmony Korine and James Franco on the Set of 'Rebel'
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photography by Adarsha Benjamin
[Cinema] Let There Be Rock
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A little over a month of rock n' roll films? Starting April 29 at the Queensland Cinémathèque in Australia, 'Let There Be Rock' brings together a wide range of documentaries and feature films capturing the rebellious spirit of rock music culture. The program features intimate portraits of bands and musicians, showcasing their magnetic stage presence and musical talents, as well as the fans, collaborations and locations that surround them.
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Wild experiments with rock operas and musicals illustrate the blending of rock music and cinema into a unique film genre. Concert films and live recordings capture bands in full flight and the transformation of stage performances into visceral experiences. Iconic music events caught on film also chronicle rare pieces of music history and their ensuring influence on new generations of music fans. http://qag.qld.gov.au/cinematheque
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